The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.