The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
