Fall Classic Final Game Captures 51 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.

The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.

Television Viewership Breakdown

The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.

It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.

In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.

Global Audience Figures

In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.

In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.

Series Averages and Patterns

The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.

Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.

The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.

Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.