The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced 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 game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
