The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
