The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
