The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game 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 initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
