The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
