The exciting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
