The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
