The exciting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
