The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
