The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.