The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
