The exciting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
