The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
