The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
