The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
