The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
