The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
