The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
