The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated 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 Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
