The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
