The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
