Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51M Viewers In the US, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.