Fall Classic Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canada and Japan Regions.
The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
