Fall Classic Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the US, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
