The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
