The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
