World Series Final Game Draws 51 Million Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
