The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
