The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
