The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages 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 marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
