The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
