Fall Classic Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.