The thrilling extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
