Fall Classic Game 7 Attracts Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
