The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
