World Series Final Game Attracts 51 Million Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japan Regions.
The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
