The thrilling extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
