The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
