The exciting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
