The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
