The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
