The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise 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 over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
