The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
