The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.