The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
