Fall Classic Final Game Attracts 51M Viewers Across the United States, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.