The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
