The exciting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
