The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes 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 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
