The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
