The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
