The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. 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 fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
