The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million 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 top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.