The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
