World Series Final Game Attracts 51M Audience Members Across the United States, Canada and Japan Regions.
The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
