World Series Final Game Draws 51 Million Viewers Across the US, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
