The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
