World Series Game 7 Captures 51M Audience Members Across the United States, Canada and Japan Regions.
The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
