World Series Game 7 Attracts Over 50 Million Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
