The exciting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
