The exciting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
