The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
