The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
