The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
