The thrilling extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
