The thrilling extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
