World Series Game 7 Captures 51 Million Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
