Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51M Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
