The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
