The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, 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 World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
