The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
