The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
