The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
