Fall Classic Game 7 Attracts 51M Viewers Across the US, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
