The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
