The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
