The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
