The exciting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
