World Series Final Game Captures 51M Audience Members In the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
