The exciting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
