The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership 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 over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
