The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance 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 complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
