The exciting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
