The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
