The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.