The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
