The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
