World Series Final Game Captures 51M Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japan Markets.
The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
