The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
