The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
