The exciting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
