Fall Classic Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
