The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
