World Series Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
