The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
