World Series Final Game Draws 51 Million Audience Members Across the US, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
