The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
