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The thrilling extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.

Broadcast Ratings Breakdown

Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.

It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.

In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.

International Audience Numbers

In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.

In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.

Series Totals and Trends

The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.

Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series 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 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.

Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.