The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
