The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
