The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
