The thrilling extended matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members 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 week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
