The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
