The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
