The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen 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 average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
