The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
