The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
