Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51 Million Viewers In the US, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
