The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
