The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast 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 averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
