The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston 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 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
