The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
