The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
