The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
