The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
