The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
