The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
