World Series Final Game Captures 51 Million Viewers In the US, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
