World Series Final Game Captures 51M Viewers In the US, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 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 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
