The thrilling extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
