The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
