The exciting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
