The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
