The exciting extended clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
