The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
