The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
