The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
