The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
