Fall Classic Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Viewers Across the United States, Canada and Japan Markets.
The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The overall 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% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
