The exciting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
