Fall Classic Game 7 Draws Over 50 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
