The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
