The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The total World Series 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 over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
