The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
