The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
