The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
