World Series Game 7 Draws 51 Million Viewers In the US, Canada and Japan Markets.
The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
