The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
