The exciting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 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 averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
