World Series Game 7 Draws 51 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.