The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
