The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
