The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
