The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
