Fall Classic Final Game Captures 51 Million Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series 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 single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
