The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
