Fall Classic Final Game Captures 51M Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
