The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
