World Series Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japan Markets.
The exciting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
