The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
