The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
