The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
