The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
