The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
