The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
