The exciting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
