World Series Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The thrilling extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
