The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
