The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
