The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 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 averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
