The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
