World Series Final Game Draws 51 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canada and Japan Regions.
The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
