The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 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 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
