The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
