The exciting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
