The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
