The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally 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 sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
