The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
