World Series Final Game Draws 51 Million Viewers Across the US, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
