The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
