The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
