The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total 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 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
