The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
