The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
