The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
