The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.