The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
