World Series Game 7 Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the US, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
