World Series Final Game Captures 51M Viewers In the US, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The exciting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
