The exciting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
