The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers 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 additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
