The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
