The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated 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 over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
