The exciting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall 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 over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
