The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
