The exciting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
