The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
