The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
