The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
