The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.