The exciting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
