Fall Classic Game 7 Captures 51M Audience Members In the US, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
