The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
