Fall Classic Game 7 Captures 51 Million Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japan Markets.
The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
