Fall Classic Game 7 Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
