The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition 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 last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
