The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
