The exciting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
