World Series Game 7 Draws 51M Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
