The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
