The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
