The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
