The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
