The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
