The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.