Fall Classic Game 7 Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canada and Japan Regions.
The exciting extended matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
