The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
