The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
