Fall Classic Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
