The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
