The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
