The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
