The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
