The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
