The exciting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
