The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
