The thrilling extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
