World Series Final Game Captures 51 Million Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers 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 audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total 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, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
