World Series Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the US, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The exciting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
