The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
