The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
