The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
