The exciting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
