The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
