The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
