The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
