The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
