The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, 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 top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
