The exciting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.