The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
