The exciting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes 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 game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
