The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
