The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
