The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
