The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
