The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
