The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
