World Series Game 7 Draws 51 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
