The exciting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.