World Series Final Game Draws 51 Million Viewers In the US, Canada and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
