The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic 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 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
