The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
