The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
