The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
