World Series Final Game Captures 51 Million Audience Members Across the US, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
