Fall Classic Game 7 Draws 51M Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japan Markets.
The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.