The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
