The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
