The exciting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
