The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
