The exciting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
