The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, 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 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
