The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic 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 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
