Fall Classic Final Game Attracts 51 Million Viewers In the US, Canada and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
