The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
