The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
