The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
