The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
