The exciting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
