Blue Jays manager says pitcher Yesavage raises the bar for the team
Schneider praises Yesavage’s impact after a dominant performance put the Blue Jays on the brink of a title.
TORONTO — This was a World Series unlike any other in baseball history — especially from the always murky perspective of television ratings and global reach.
One of the game’s top two franchises, packed with international stars, Canada’s only major league baseball club battles it out, and has produced audience metrics that range from pleasantly surprising to globally abundant.
For Major League Baseball, that is Los Angeles Dodgers–Toronto Blue Jays The game was a global success, thanks to the historic performances of Shohei Ohtani and the incomparable Yoshinobu Yamamoto, to the attendance of the Blue Jays, who captivated Toronto and all of Canada like never before.
Game 1 averaged 32.6 million viewers across the U.S., Canada and Japan, the most since Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. The combined Game 1-2 audience of 19.8 million in the U.S. and Canada was up 24% from last season, also the highest since the Cubs and Cleveland’s historic battle in 2016.
For Fox Sports, having a Canadian team was always going to make this world championship an uphill climb. However, the circumstances — from Ohtani’s presence, to an 18-inning epic that captivated casual viewers, to a streak that lasted at least six games — were an undeniable blessing.
Fox appears to have escaped the punishment that came with an entrant from a Canadian market stealing huge numbers from a US city passionate about its local team. Through Game 4, the network is averaging a 5.4 rating and 12.4 million viewers per game, down from the 2024 Yankees-Dodgers bicoastal award that produced a 7.3 number, but 15% higher than the 2023 Arizona-Dodgers ratings.
The growth from Game 2 (5.2 rating, 11.4 million viewers on Saturday night) to Game 4 (7.2/14.5 million on Tuesday) suggests that the series’ rapidly developing storyline combined with a football-free evening has increased interest.
In Canada, Sportsnet — which holds the rights to broadcast all of the World Series — broke viewing records throughout the Blue Jays’ postseason, peaking at 7.7 million viewers in Game 1, a mark that is almost certain to be broken as the Blue Jays aim to clinch their first title since 1993 this weekend.
The combined Game 5 audience in the U.S. and Canada across all Fox and Sportsnet platforms reached 22 million, the most since the 2019 Game 7.
For decades, the Blue Jays have been toxic to the American gridiron during the regular season. They haven’t appeared on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball since 1999, for the same reasons the Yankees-Red Sox team appears annually as many times as possible: It’s difficult for ESPN or Fox to get a ratings number during the regular season without attracting significant local attention from one of the teams’ markets.
But the World Series is a different animal. The best company for this World Series is neither the Dodgers-Yankees game that preceded it, nor the 2023 Rangers, says John Kosner, president of his eponymous firm, which provides sports media advisory, investment and consulting.Diamondbacks A five-game battle that was, predictably, the worst-rated series ever.
Instead, he cites the 2019 NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors that featured a polarizing defending champion led by a global star battling a Canadian team with established personality.
ABC survived the Canadian blow: the finals averaged 15.4 million viewers, including 18.3 million viewers in the deciding Game 6. That crushed Game 4 a year ago, when the finale between Curry and LeBron James drew 16.2 million viewers.
Six years later, conditions are eerily similar.
“You have the defending champion superteam, No. 2 in the market, No. 1 on the Dodgers roster,” Kosner says. “You have Shohei Ohtani for Steph Curry. And you’re playing a great Toronto team that beat the Yankees, which includes Vlad Guerrero Jr.
“The conventional wisdom has always been that you want two U.S. markets, preferably two big U.S. markets. My point is it’s really important which teams can grab people’s attention. There was a lot of interest in Kawhi Leonard and Toronto in 2019. There’s a lot of interest in the Toronto Blue Jays and how they fielded the team.” New York Yankees And the Seattle Mariners.”
Of course, all of these numbers come against a changing backdrop of how ratings are shaped and viewership is counted. In 2020, Nielsen began including out-of-home measurements in ratings, such as watch parties, bars and other group viewing situations. In 2024, they expanded that metric beyond the top 44 markets, to include smaller, NFL-focused markets like Green Bay, Buffalo and New Orleans.
In September, it incorporated “big data plus panel” measurement of live programming into its ratings, incorporating data from homes with smart TVs and streaming devices, in an attempt to create a more accurate view of actual viewership.
Counting metrics provided a near-term boost to valuations — NFL and college football numbers has risen – Since the out-of-home counting revolution of 2020, we have stopped some of the ratings bleeding due to cable TV cord cutting and the rise of streaming.
But beyond the spinable boosts, metrics provide at least a partially more accurate view of actual viewership in this era of sparse audiences.
Now Game 6, for the first time since 2022. This matchup — which includes a large, hungry fan base in the Phillies and an increasingly vilified Astros — earned a 6.1 rating and 12.5 million estimated viewers for Fox.
There’s a good chance it will be overtaken by this truly international issue – even with a single, essentially restricted market behind it. The fact that it beats the 2023 Diamondbacks-Rangers matchup — which matches Nielsen’s No. 4-8 markets, not exactly Mayberry vs. Stars Hollow – Points out the fact that who is as important as where.
“You had two markets in the U.S., but a lot of people weren’t familiar with either team,” Kosner says.
“In this case, you have a very large marquee.”
