The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
