Fall Classic Game 7 Attracts Over 50 Million Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japan Regions.
The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
