The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
