The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
