Fall Classic Game 7 Captures 51M Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
