The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
