World Series Final Game Captures 51 Million Viewers In the US, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
