The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
