The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
