The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
