The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
