The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
