The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
