World Series Final Game Draws 51 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canada and Japan Markets.
The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership 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 program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
