The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
