The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
