The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic 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 two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
