The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
