The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per 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 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. 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, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
