The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
