Fall Classic Game 7 Draws 51M Viewers Across the United States, Canada and Japan Markets.
The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
