The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
