The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
