The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
