World Series Game 7 Attracts 51 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canada and Japanese Markets.

The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.

Television Ratings Breakdown

Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.

It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.

In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.

Global Viewership Figures

In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.

In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.

Series Averages and Trends

The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.

Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.

The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.

MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.