Fall Classic Final Game Attracts 51M Audience Members In the US, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
