The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
