The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
