The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
