The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
