The thrilling extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
