The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
