The exciting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
