The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
