The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
