The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
