The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
