The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
