The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
