The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
