The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
