The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
