The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
