The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language 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 game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
