World Series Final Game Captures 51M Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
