World Series Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Viewers Across the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.