Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51M Viewers In the US, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus 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 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
