Fall Classic Final Game Captures 51 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
