The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
