The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
