The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
