The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
