The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
