Fall Classic Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
