The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
