The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
