The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
