The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
