The exciting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, 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 Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
