The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
