The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, 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 Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
