World Series Game 7 Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
