Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51 Million Viewers Across the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
