World Series Final Game Draws 51M Viewers Across the US, Canada and Japan Regions.
The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.