The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
