The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
