The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
