The exciting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership 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 viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
