The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
