World Series Final Game Attracts 51 Million Audience Members Across the US, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
