The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
