Fall Classic Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
