The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
