The thrilling extended matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
