World Series Game 7 Draws 51 Million Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.