The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
