The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
