The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
