The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
