The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
