The thrilling extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
