The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
