Fall Classic Final Game Attracts 51M Audience Members In the US, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
