World Series Final Game Attracts 51M Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
