The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
