World Series Final Game Attracts Over 50 Million Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic 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 over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.