The exciting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
