The exciting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
