The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M 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 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
