The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
