The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
