The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent 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 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
