World Series Final Game Captures 51 Million Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
