The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to 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 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
