The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
