The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
