World Series Final Game Captures 51M Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
