The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
