The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
