The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
