The thrilling extended matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million 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 over last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
