The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
