The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
