The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
