The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox 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 additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
