The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
