World Series Game 7 Draws Over 50 Million Viewers In the US, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
