Fall Classic Final Game Captures 51M Viewers In the US, Canada and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
