The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
