The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
