The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
