The exciting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
