The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
