The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. 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 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
