World Series Final Game Draws 51M Viewers Across the United States, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
