Fall Classic Final Game Attracts 51M Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
