The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
