The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
