World Series Game 7 Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canada and Japan Regions.
The exciting extended clash where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
