The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
