Fall Classic Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan 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 eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
