The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
