The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
