The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
