The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
