The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
