The exciting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.