The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
