The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
