The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.