The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.