The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
