The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
