Fall Classic Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members In the US, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to 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 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
