The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
