The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
