The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
