The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
