World Series Game 7 Captures 51 Million Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
