Fall Classic Final Game Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members In the US, Canada and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
