Fall Classic Game 7 Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
