The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
