The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program 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 attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
