The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
