The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched 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 marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
