Fall Classic Game 7 Draws 51M Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
