The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
