The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
