The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
