The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
