World Series Game 7 Captures 51 Million Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
