The exciting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
