The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
