The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
