The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
