Fall Classic Game 7 Attracts 51M Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
