The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous 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.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
