The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
