World Series Final Game Captures 51M Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
