The exciting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.