The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
