The thrilling extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
