World Series Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the US, Canada and Japan Markets.
The thrilling extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
