World Series Game 7 Attracts 51M Audience Members Across the US, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
