World Series Final Game Captures 51M Audience Members Across the United States, Canada and Japan Markets.
The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
