The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
