The thrilling extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
