The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
