The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
