The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
