Fall Classic Game 7 Attracts 51 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 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 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.