The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
