The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
