The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers 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 stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
