The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
