The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
