The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
