It may have only been the 2024 World Series, but the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees show they know how to bring in the people. Especially in Japan. The 2021 Fall Classic reportedly drew an average TV audience of 12.1 million viewers in Japan, the home country of Dodgers players Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the MLB revealed on Friday.
That is a wider audience than the 11.3 million viewers that the 2024 NBA Finals averaged earlier this year during the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks face-off. The last night’s Game 5 of the World Series broadcast on Fox, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital streaming averaged 18.6 million viewers in the United States, Fox said in its broadcast, making it the most-watched Game 5 on the station since the 2017 World Series in Houston. Gonzalez himself brought home the winning runs with a three-run homer in the top of the ninth to make it 7-6 Dodgers en route to their eighth title. In total, the World Series had received more than 30 million viewers total between North America and Asia.
It’s not shocking at all to have a team featuring Ohtani attract large figures in Japan as part of the 2024 MLB playoffs. The Dodgers star is the national treasure in the country, and this season he somehow elevated his status to levels that have not been seen in the history of baseball, making 50-50 seasons and successfully passing the first playoffs. He didn’t excel, however, in actual World Series performance, which, at least, could be partly blamed on a sore shoulder. Fox’s numbers in the U.S.
are a continuing 58% increase from Game 1 of the Texas Rangers vs. Arizona Diamondbacks World Series from the previous year. With a title in sight, Los Angeles outperformed New York in terms of local ratings (21.1, 55 shares). Viewership peaked between 11:11:30 a.m and 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, more or less when the Dodgers scored the go-ahead run in the top of the eighth and turned to Blake Treinen to protect the lead. In total, the average game audience of the World Series in the United States sat at 15.8 million; it is the result that the league has not registered for 3 years.
That is why the television networks probably hope the Yankees had stuck around for a while longer. Fox already trailed an average of $44.3 million in ads for the first five games and it stood to earn even more if Games 6 and 7 were to happen. Perhaps it is worth wondering how equating the numbers from only seven years ago to stateside is going to benefit MLB. It is hard to imagine a better fit in terms of ratings but the league has been struggling against the declining TV ratings industry-wide for years.
The coronavirus pandemic aftermath of 2020 has been especially challenging for the sports industry, so a chance to match at least one major league where it was seven years ago will look good enough to many. Except, of course, for the NFL The NFL, handicapped as it is by the constraint that it must remain a professional elite sporting body of America, fully realized that the only way they could keep up was by expanding their inventory.
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FAQ
They asked why the World Series drew more spectators in Japan than the NBA Finals in the US.
The fans of baseball have been established in Japan and the addition of Japanese players into MLB has boosted the following hence competition for viewership with the NBA Finals in U.S.
What is the trend in the viewership for the World Series in Japan?
Audience for the World Series in Japan has tended to increase with the participation of Japanese players as a stable source of attention towards MLB has been observed.
Are baseballs more popular than basketballs in Japan?
Of course, baseball used to be one of the most beloved sports in Japan, and it is a known fact that Japanese people like watching MLB games.
Were there specific circumstances that made the NBA Finals attract fewer viewers in the US this year?
There are always certain attributes like competing events, change in audience preference and some specific friendly/unfriendly match-ups which influence the total number of viewers in NBA Finals in U.S.
What are this viewership pattern’s implications for MLB and NBA promotions and advertising?
MLB might use this trend to consolidate its programs in Japan, whereas the NBA must consider ways of commanding the attention of the U.S. audiences and attracting new consumers.