The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
