The thrilling extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
