Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51 Million Viewers In the US, Canada and Japan Regions.
The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
