Fall Classic Final Game Captures 51 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
