The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
