The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
