Fall Classic Final Game Captures 51 Million Audience Members Across the US, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
