The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
