The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
