The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.