The thrilling extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
