The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
