The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox 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 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.