The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
