The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
