The exciting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
