The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The total World Series 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 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
