The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
