The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
