Fall Classic Final Game Attracts 51 Million Audience Members Across the US, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
