The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
