The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
