The thrilling extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
