The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
