The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan 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 Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
