The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
