The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
