The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall 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 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
