The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
