The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
