World Series Game 7 Draws 51M Audience Members In the US, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
