The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
