The thrilling extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
