Fall Classic Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Viewers Across the US, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
