The exciting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
