The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
