The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
