The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
