The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
