The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
