The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.