The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
