The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
