The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
