Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51M Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japan Markets.
The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
