The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
