The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
