The exciting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
