World Series Game 7 Draws 51 Million Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The exciting extended matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
