The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
