The exciting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
