The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
