Fall Classic Final Game Captures 51M Viewers Across the US, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 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 previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.