World Series Game 7 Captures 51M Viewers Across the US, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
