The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
