The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, 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 recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’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 languages.
