The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
