The exciting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
