The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
