Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
