Fall Classic Game 7 Draws 51 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
