World Series Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Audience Members In the US, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
