The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
