World Series Game 7 Draws Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
