The thrilling extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
