The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
