The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
