The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
