The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic 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 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
