The thrilling extended clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
