The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
